Death of a Doxy (Crime Line)

I don't mention everything, for instance phone calls that have nothing to do with progress or the lack of it. There had been two phone calls from Jill Hardy, one from Dr. Gamm, two from Lon Cohen, and three from Nathaniel Parker. But I mention the one from Parker that Sunday afternoon because what he wanted to do might have helped or hurt. He had decided he should make a habeas corpus play Monday morning to get Orrie bailed out, and it took Wolfe ten minutes to talk him out of it. It wasn't easy. Wolfe couldn't very well tell him that we were no longer worried about Orrie, that we now had another fish to fry.

Or maybe we did. When I went to bed Sunday night, after winning $1.25 from Julie at gin, there had been no discussion and no instructions, nothing. The Ten Little Indians was closed Sundays. Julie had had an afternoon nap, and I had had a long walk. Wolfe had had the Times and a book, and probably, while I was out, his weekly battle with television. That may occur almost any evening, when he has got disgusted with a book, but usually it's a Sunday afternoon, because that's when TV is supposed to be dressed for company. He turns on one channel after another, getting grimmer and grimmer, until he is completely assured that it's getting worse instead of better, and quits.

The only time he and Julie were together was at the dinner table, and it was different from any meal at that table I could remember. Ordinarily Wolfe is perfectly willing to do most of the talking, with or without company, but that time, from the Neptune bouchees right through to the chestnut whip, he not only let the guest, a female guest, take over, he egged her on. He asked her questions, dozens of questions, about her work and her background and the people she knew. By the time coffee came, I had settled on the only possible explanation: he had decided that I didn't understand women as well as he had thought I did, and it was up to him to fill the gap. I could have told him that that kind of approach wouldn't help much, but apparently I was no longer regarded as an expert.

So I got a surprise when I entered the kitchen Monday morning and Fritz told me I was wanted, and I went up one flight and knocked and entered, and Wolfe said, "Good morning. Can that woman be trusted in a matter that requires adroit execution and full discretion?"

"You ought to know," I said, "after the quiz you put her through."

"I don't. Do you?"